I *heart* my kids...

[manuka.livejournal.com]

I recently updated my kids' machine (an old Dell GX150) with the new version of SteadyState that came out on Friday. Unfortunately, one quirk of this new version (it's still beta, I use my kids to eval its effectiveness for the public kiosk machines at the office) is that it disables Fast User Switching on XP.

After I finish with the patches and stuff, I bring my eldest in to tell her I got her machine fixed, but that a few things have changed. One was that to log into the machine she now needs to type her name in the first box and her password in the second box. The other was that she got a new monitor, and instead of having a mechanical switch in the back to turn it on and off (the old one was a 14" NEC LCD from nearly a decade ago), there was a button on the front. The third was that I updated her shortcuts in Firefox and added ABP.

She looks at me and goes "OK, daddy, I got it." And started using it the "new way". Didn't faze her in the least. My daughters are 2.1 and 4.25. The only reason I really had to tell her much of anything is because she's not fully reading yet.

If only my users adapted to change that easily. I had to give one of our high-maintenance users a laptop this week due to a job change. She's still a little freaked out by the whole thing. Although she lit up a little bit when we told her we didn't have any more laptop bags and that this was her chance to make a fashion statement. The fashion shopper in her started jumping with glee. It was plainly visible in her eyes.